


heart for heart

by pancakefucker



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, M/M, Relationship Study, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 07:12:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pancakefucker/pseuds/pancakefucker
Summary: After the fight at the Valley of the End, and after they get some much needed emergency care, Naruto and Sasuke exchange some words. And maybe a marriage proposal. Maybe.





	heart for heart

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually a prompt i got on tumblr and i thought i'd post it here, seeing as how this account is so goddamn barren! if you want to toss me some clout, here's the link!: http://mcccree.tumblr.com/post/181690917028/sns-22

The hospital air is septic, silent, but Naruto doesn’t have time to dwell on how hollow the air feels, how it feels like it’s sapping at his lungs when he breathes in, because people are flooding in just to look at him. To see him. To make sure that he’s alive and well and holy shit, Naruto, you don’t have an arm anymore, how does that feel, Naruto, you saved the world, Naruto, you’re a hero, Naruto, Naruto, _Naruto_.

Nobody asks him about Sasuke.

Which he understands—or tries to, anyway. Nobody visits Sasuke, nobody mentions Sasuke, despite the fact that Sasuke’s room is right next to his, despite the fact that Sasuke is just as much a hero as Naruto is. Maybe more, for coming back to a village that has started to hate him.

It shouldn’t matter, is the thing. It shouldn’t matter because Naruto has his friends coming in, has people he’s never seen before praising him and telling him their thanks and Sasuke’s back home despite Naruto blowing his arm off, and Naruto can’t help but think: _he deserves your thanks, too._ He hasn’t had a chance, not yet, to see Sasuke, what with all the people coming in and congratulating him and thanking him and offering to name their first-born children after him. It starts out being not so bad, because Naruto loves company, and then somewhere between the tenth offer of marriage and eighteenth offer of a lifetime supply of free whatever, Naruto’s maybe, just maybe, a little bit tired.

Sakura notices. She ushers everyone out, telling them that hospital visiting hours are over, even though there are no visiting hours, so technically they can’t be over, but Sakura kicks everyone out, nonetheless. She looks at Naruto, as she leaves: _you owe me_. 

And at last, quiet.

Naruto lasts about five minutes before he throws the covers off and marches straight into Sasuke’s room.

Sasuke’s room has the same view that Naruto’s does, but it feels different, somehow. As if the green field outside, illuminated by the golden sunlight, belongs to another world. Naruto doesn’t understand how this is possible, when the only difference between this room and Naruto’s is Sasuke’s presence in it. He’s sitting by the window, staring out. If he heard Naruto come in, he makes no indication of it.

For a while, Naruto just stands there. Watching. His best friend, come home. Come back, to him. Something in his chest squeezes at the reality of it. After all this time, Sasuke’s come back. How was that anything short of a miracle?

“Does the back of my head look that good?”

“It looks like a duck’s ass,” Naruto answers, and that gets a snort out of Sasuke.

Sasuke turns his head, ever so slightly, to look at Naruto. The lines of his face are edged in gold, and the look Sasuke gives him is—it’s not warm, but something approaching it. Not a smile, but close.

“Did you come here to annoy me?” Sasuke says, now fully turning his head to look at Naruto. Naruto gets closer, and what a far cry Sasuke’s gaze is, from the first time he looked at Naruto at Tenchi bridge. Their first reunion, etched into Naruto’s memory. The dull, lifeless look in Sasuke’s eyes. The empty expression.

Sasuke is raising an eyebrow at him. It’s a very, very human expression.

“I had nothing else to do,” Naruto says, and he sits on the window sill too, opposite Sasuke. “Wanted to see your fugly face before I called it a day.”

“Got tired of your admirers that fast?” Sasuke asks.

Naruto’s room is filled with gifts—flowers, chocolates, get-well-soon cards, instant ramen cups, more flowers. Sasuke’s is bare, except for the glass of water and what looks like some weird porno book—the kind that Kakashi reads—on the bedside.

“They’re not admirers,” Naruto says, a little petulantly. Because he’s right. They’re not admirers—just people grateful to be alive. And what was so wrong with that?

“Didn’t someone propose to you?” Sasuke asks, and he leans forward, and the sunlight smooths out the sharp, dangerous angles of his face. “Did you turn her down?”

“She was a five year old,” Naruto says, with a laugh.

“Already such a heartbreaker,” Sasuke says, smiling. “Next thing you know, girls are going to be lining around the corner just to look at you.”

“Jealous?” Naruto asks, with a snicker.

“Of you? Never.”

A comfortable silence falls between them. Sasuke pulls his leg up, rests his chin there, to look at Naruto. Naruto looks at Sasuke. He meets Sasuke’s gaze, and Sasuke doesn’t even blink. Naruto wonders, sometimes, what Sasuke sees when he looks at Naruto. A friend? A brother? A rival? A botched attempt at cutting all his ties? Or nothing at all, but a puzzle? It does funny things to Naruto’s stomach, when he thinks about the way Sasuke looks at him. Naruto’s an orphan, and by nature, he’s always wanted to be looked at, to be paid attention to, to be noticed. But the kind of attention that Sasuke gives him is different in a way Naruto can’t quite comprehend. Sasuke’s attention, his focus, feels like the blazing heat of a furnace after being out in the cold too long. Like it’s thawing Naruto, right down to his bones. Setting some part of him alight. 

Sasuke blinks, slowly, almost cat-like at Naruto. When he opens his eyes, he has a strange expression on his face. “We should get married.”

Naruto nearly falls over.

“What the fuck?” Naruto says, much too loudly, and wow, why the hell does talking too loudly hurt? It doesn’t matter, because Sasuke’s gone insane, and oh shit, did Naruto knock Sasuke around too hard back at the Valley of the End? “What the hell do you mean by _we should get married?_ Are you fucking twisted? Are you good, Sasuke? Should I call a nurse? Are you fucking good?”

“We should get married,” Sasuke repeats, simply, and Naruto could strangle him for it.

“You’re joking,” Naruto says, squinting at Sasuke. Frowns, scrunching up his face. “You’re trying to pull one over me. Are you trying to be funny, Sasuke? ‘Cuz you suck at it.”

Sasuke shrugs, nonchalant, and Naruto has to pour in every ounce of self-control he has to not try and reach out and shake some sense out of Sasuke. Somehow, even after losing an arm, after coming back home, _to_ Naruto, after all that pain and time and suffering, Sasuke still manages to get on Naruto’s nerves. It’s nothing short of a miracle, how much he’s changed, how little. Broader in the shoulders, the chest, the jaw, but his eyes—even if they’re Itachi’s (Naruto doesn’t like to think about that)—the way they look at Naruto is the same. Halfway between amused and intrigued, waiting to see what Naruto will do next.

Why is Naruto thinking about _any_ of this? Sasuke just proposed to him!

Naruto refuses to dwell on the fact that Sasuke—right now—seems to be looking at him with more than amusement.

“I think it would be a great way,” Sasuke says, “to show how much we’ve truly reconciled.”

“I will beat you in the face and ass,” Naruto says. And then he forces himself to be rational. “Why do you want to get married? Give me a good reason or else I’ll—I’ll—” he falters, as he struggles for a suitable enough punishment—“punch you.”

“I don’t want to get interrogated,” Sasuke says. “Maybe if I get married to village idiot—sorry, _hero_ —they’ll absolve me of all suspicion.”

Interrogation. The word makes Naruto’s stomach churn. Does it make sense? Of course it does. Sasuke’s technically a criminal. Tried to kill the kage, betrayed the village, all of that hot stuff.

“How is marrying me going to make things any better?”

“Oh, it’ll show how serious I am about reforming as a person, since I’m loyal to the savior of the world through some sacred bond of marriage now.”

“Don’t say that,” Naruto says.

“Say what?”

“Savior of the world.” There’s a frown on Naruto’s face now, and he leans a little towards Sasuke. “You saved it too.”

“Still a criminal.”

“Not after Kakashi-sensei pardons you.”

“The village will hate me.” He shrugs, like he couldn’t care less. “Might as well leave again. It’d be for the best.”

“I’ll marry you,” Naruto says, without thinking. No. He gave it thought. A split second’s worth of thought, but more than enough. He thought about Sasuke leaving, after all of this, falling through Naruto’s grip like sand. Nothing to hold him to Naruto. “Don’t leave. I’ll marry you if you leave.”

“I thought it’d be against your morals,” Sasuke says, shifting his voice into teasing, “to marry someone you don’t love.”

“Don’t say that,” Naruto says. He doesn’t know why it comes out so angry, so serious. “I was kidding.”

“I was joking, too,” Sasuke says.

“You weren’t joking,” Naruto says, a little angrily. “About the me not loving you part. Don’t lie. You weren’t joking about that.”

Sasuke doesn’t answer. He doesn’t say anything about Naruto’s sudden shift in tone, instead, choosing to look at the sunset outside, his expression impassive. How strange. All that time, and Naruto never thought that Sasuke would have changed this much. Just assumed, naturally, after that closing of distance, things would just fall into place. Just bickering, back and forth, like they were thirteen again. Having Sasuke back means learning to bridge that gap they’ve built between each other. Means learning how to grow comfortable with silence. Means learning each other, again. Yin for yang, eye for eye, heart for heart.

“You know,” Sasuke says, not looking away from the sunset, “I’m going to leave. Fake marriage or not.”

Naruto is staring at Sasuke. The way his eyes are still black even with the dying sunlight shining right into them, the way light slides across his jaw, hooking under his shirt.

“I know,” Naruto says.

“And you know there’s nothing you can say that’s going to get me to stay,” Sasuke says.

“I know.”

“But you’re still going to try,” Sasuke says, and Naruto wonders if Sasuke’s really smiling, or if it’s just a trick of the light.

“Of course I’m going to try,” Naruto says, as if nothing could be more obvious.

“You really are something else.” And he turns to look at Naruto, and he really, really is smiling. “Come with me.”

Ah. Naruto’s on the cusp of something. He knows he is, because he can’t think of anything to say to that. Can’t think to say yes, or refuse, but to just look back at Sasuke. Instinctually, familiarly. Like looking over the drop of a cliff’s edge. Like looking at something bigger than himself. Like being on the verge of understanding something almost too big to comprehend. Like the stomach drop before a fall, like the heart beating up against his throat, like, like, like, like—

“Okay,” Naruto says, a little breathlessly. “I’ll go with you.”

  
  



End file.
